Hey, BP: Where's the Oil?

On Face the Nation two days ago, CBS News correspondent John Dickerson asked the following question of BP Managing Director Bob Dudley:

There's been some talk about bringing supertankers in to help with the cleanup effort. Is that something BP is considering to vacuum off the oil?

Here's how Dudley responded:

We have looked at that. It's a — we have looked at that. It's an interesting, interesting idea. Those have you — been used in the — in the Arabian Sea in the Gulf over there for spills. What we're finding with this oil, it's — it's light, it's relatively volatile. And with the use of dispersants, it tends to string out a number of miles long but very narrow. And so, as we look at this, it's — it's not the same concept to be able to work. And — and our spill responses at the surface now are being very, very effective.

Surely about as convoluted as English can be. (One has to wonder at this point if BP's convolutions aren't purposeful.) But, what Dudley seems to be saying is that his understanding of the supertanker strategy for recovering the oil is premised on there being significant amounts of surface oil (this is what BP Director of External Affairs John Curry told me on Friday as well), and that since BP has deployed close to a million gallons of Corexit dispersant to the oil, there isn't as much surface oil to "skim." Indeed, conference calls last week with BP's COO Doug Suttles confirm that the company's efforts to reduce the surface oil through burning and the use of dispersants constitute for the company a source of pride, and perhaps the sole bright spot in the Deepwater Horizon affair. Hence this, from Dudley: "...our spill responses at the surface now are being very, very effective..."

But parsing Dudley further, he seems to acknowledge the obvious; if the oil ain't on the surface, then it's below the surface:

What we're finding with this oil, it's — it's light, it's relatively volatile. And with the use of dispersants, it tends to string out a number of miles long but very narrow.

Here, Dudley seems to be referring to the "plumes" that scientists have detected in two locations so far. Typically, oil, which is lighter than water, rises to the surface. But the liberal use of chemical dispersants has had the effect of making the oil heavier than normal, and thus is making it behave in ways that it normally might not. Hence, the plumes that scientists are finding (last week's estimated to be 22 miles long), and Dudley's "...tends to string out a number of miles long but very narrow..."

But then, also Sunday, BP CEO Tony Hayward (pictured above), who is quickly becoming a real movie villain, straight from central casting (he will long be remembered — and should lose his job — for saying three weeks ago that the spill is "relatively tiny" compared with the "very big ocean."), said this:

"The oil is on the surface... There aren't any plumes."

(This might explain why BP has steadfastly refused to deploy tankers to the Gulf to begin to suction the oil from the water — a possible solution the Politics Blog has written about here, here, here, here, and here. I mean, how can you recover oil if it's not there, right? One problem with this stonewalling is that some smart oil industry people are saying that the supertanker strategy need not be confined to surface collection.)

So which is it, gentlemen? Plumes or no plumes? You've either dispersed a great volume of oil under the surface (that, after all, was the point of the EPA waiver for subsea use of Corexit in the first place, remember?) or you haven't. An estimated 25 million gallons of oil — and that's by conservative estimates — has poured in to the Gulf from your broken riser since April 20. Certainly you don't mean for the American public to believe that the cleanup effort has burned it all, or skimmed it all, or that is has evaporated, or that the worst of it has come ashore.

So where's the oil?

Tony Hayward says that BP has conducted its own tests, which purport to show that there is simply no oil, laden heavy with dispersants, massing under the surface. Those scientists who have found the ominous plumes must be wrong. Fine. But since BP has such a spotty record of providing useful and accurate information, forgive us if we choose not to trust you on this point. Allow us to second Congressman Ed Markey's call to show us your tests, Tony. Prove it. This isn't North Korea. You don't own the Gulf of Mexico; your company is just currently ruining it. So you don't get to control the information here. If there is no oil under the surface, you might want to first brief your own executives. And then prove it to our elected representatives and to the American public. Now.

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